MedPac issued it’s 2014 report to Congress (click link to view entire report) on the state of the Medicare system along with it’s recommendations. MedPac is the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission which is a non-partisan commission which offers Congress updates and recommendations on the Medicare program. Generally, I focus on the Medicare Advantage…

Here is a link to the story from Politico.com. I blogged about the changes that CMS was proposing last week. Here is a link to that blog post. CMS administrator Marilyn Tavenner sent a letter to Congress which acknowledged the concerns of all the stakeholders that argued against the changes to…

I filed my comments with CMS regarding their proposed rulemaking which would reduce the renewal commissions from 50% of initial commissions to 35%. I have comments on the rulemaking with regard to agent’s commissions here and here and comments on the changes to the Part D drug benefit here….

As we move into Spring, many people are drawn to the madness of the annual men’s college basketball tournament. As such, Ritter Insurance Marketing invites you to enter the 2014 Ritter Bracket Challenge. No purchase is necessary and there are no contracting requirements to participate. Heck, you don’t even need to know anything about college…

Here is the story from Kaiser. There was a considerable amount of proposed rule making devoted to changes to the Medicare Prescription Drug program (Medicare Part D and Medicare advantage with Prescriptions). One of the changes involved limiting Plan Sponsor’s ability to offer more than 2 plans. The proposal would tighten the rules…

Here is a report from AHIP which was written by the actuarial firm Oliver Wyman. This goes into much greater detail on the impacts of the various proposals in CMS Advance Notice of Medicare Advantage payment rates for 2015. Wyman pegs the overall rate reduction as 5.9% which includes averages for both Elimination…

CMS has opened the door for SilverScript to accept auto assignments for Medicare beneficiaries with Low Income Subsidy. CMS monitored their enrollment activity from January 1st, 2014 through February 20th, 2014 and determined that there was sufficient improvement to lift the sanction on auto enrollment and reassignment exclusion. Here is a link to